I'm in Hawaii. Specifically, I'm in a Bali Hai Villa on the island of Kauai. It's a long story. No, actually, the story is a short one: I have amazing and generous friends. In this surreally lackadaisical and sunny setting, where palm trees sway and roosters run wild (liberated from farms by the hurricanes of '82 and '92), I'm trying to keep a vague handle on life at home. In DC, there is ice on the ground and first-pass proofs of DKTBG are waiting to be returned by January 11.

Must... maintain... writerly... discipline. Must stay on top of emails. Must continue to arrange spring readings. Must try, and fail, to tan. So as a symbolic gesture I brought along my copy of the latest Poets & Writers, "The Inspiration Issue." Yesterday, while watching a light rain fall and sipping a pineapple cocktail, I turned to the 6th Annual Debut Poets Roundup.

As Kevin Larimer's intro mentions, the roundup has a familiar rhythm by now: always a poet whose book got picked up on a first send-out, a poet whose MS was chosen after decades of submitting, one poet who focuses on craft, one who treats verse as play, and so on. I always read the feature with a mix of nostalgia, envy, and nausea. I remember the bridesmaid years. Trying different styles, different niches, ordering and re-ordering, waiting for that first big break, watching as others got theirs: God, how awful it was. And yet, how liberating--but appreciated only in hindsight.

Anyway, one of this year's profiled poets is Nick Demske. I've never met him. To be honest, never heard of him before. Age: 27. Residence: Racine, Wisconsin. Graduate Degree: MA in library and information science from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Job: "I mostly shelve books and do other menial circulation tasks at the Racine Public Library." Award: Winner of the 2010 Fence Modern Poetry Series, selected by Joyelle McSweeney. Publisher: Fence Books.

These roundup profiles are not long or substantial texts. Yet there is something about his Q&A on inspiration and advice that is so winning, so poignant, and so simple and honest, that it makes my whole heart smile; it makes me fall in love with poetry all over again. There is importance to this thing we do--and how it affects the lives we live--and I can see it in his answers.

So I'm going to re-type his P&W profile here (with the caveat: go buy a copy of the magazine!), and I'm sure as heck gonna track down his book to read.

NICK DEMSKEBook: NICK DEMSKE

Time Spent Writing the Book: Two Years.

Number of Contests Entered: "About ten. I feel lucky the number is so small."

Source of Inspiration: "My mother died of breast cancer before I was half done with the manuscript. That was a big inspiration. The book is, in part, about bad form. The most blatant way that's enacted in the book is through the form of the poems: They're all loose sonnets--love poems, but their content actively resists the form. Words are cut in half to meet rhyme schemes. The line lengths themselves are so long that the book has to be printed sideways--in landscape, rather than portrait orientation. On many levels, the book is many repetitions of forms that are inappropriate for their contents. My mother dying, my lovely mother dying, was largely the inspiration for this. She had a spirit like wildfire, which could brighten anyone she came in contact with. She was smart, insightful; she loved the natural world and she lived the healthiest life of anyone I have ever met. And yet here she was, incoherent, unable to get off the toilet independently, her very own piss a biohazard. She eventually drowned in fluid in her own lungs. The form--her invalid body--was an inappropriate match for her content, that wildfire, her beautiful spirit. It was after this I realized that, in general, the human body is bad form for the human spirit. Bad form. Bad form."

Advice: "Any advice I give in terms of writing could only be the same advice I would give in the more general terms of life: Enjoy yourself, treat people well, don't take writing too seriously, don't take writing too lightly, make friends and loved ones and spend lots of time enjoying that community. Keep your priorities straight."

The photo shows Demske leaning against an anonymous brick wall, in a plain navy t-shirt and a knit green & turquoise cap with Heidi-yarned tassels on either side. Bright smile. He looks a little incredulous at this whole turn of events.

Here's to new authors, new books, new hometowns, new hopes.

Here's to the staff at Poets & Writers for continuing to put out a great magazine, even in an age when magazines feel imperiled.

Want to know what the passing year is like?A snake slithering down a hole.Half his scales already hidden,How to stop him from getting away?Grab his tail and pull, you say?Pull all you like--it does no good.The children try hard not to doze,Chatter back and forth to stay awake,But I say let dawn cocks keep still!I fear the noise of watch drums pounding.We've sat so long the lamp's burned out.I get up and look at the slanting Dipper.How could I hope next year won't come?My mind shrinks from the failures it may bring.I work to hold on to the nightWhile I can still brag I'm young.

White Crane Hill

Seacoast wears you out with damp and heat; my new place is better–high and cool. In return for the sweat of hiking up and down I've a dry spot to sleep and sit. But paths to the river are a rocky hell; I wince at the water bearer's aching back. I hired four men, put them to work hacking through layers of obdurate rock. Ten days and they'd gone only eight or ten feet; below was a stratum of solid blue stone. Drills all day struck futile sparks – when would we ever see springs bubble up? I'll keep you filled with rice and wine, you keep your drills and hammers flying! Mountain rock must end some time – stubborn as I am, I won't give up. This morning the houseboy told me with joy they're into dirt soft enough to knead! At dawn the pitcher brought up milky water; by evening, it was clearer than an icy stream. All my life has been like this – what way to turn and not run into blocks? But Heaven has sent me a dipper of water; arm for a pillow, my happiness overflows.

Most years around this time I like to post my list of Top 10 Poetry books, but this year's list will be somewhat different for the following reason: I didn't read a lot of new poetry this year. Well, that's not exactly true. I didn't read as many as I normally do, or enough to feel like I've got the coverage which would allow me to even justify typing up a list.

Most of 2010 was spent reading for two of my three comprehensive exams, and so this is my list of Favorite 10 Books of 2010 in No Particular Order (notice it's not a "Top 10"). Its contents have been gleaned from my exam reading lists, my general studies, and the year's leisure reading.

Poetic Justice: The Literary Imagination and Public Life - Martha C. Nussbaum -- I read this last summer for my Specialized Exam reading list, and blogged about it here and here.

Aesthetic Theory - Theodor Adorno -- This book consumed me for two weeks in Kansas this summer. Mornings were spent working on my poetry manuscript and afternoons were spent tracing Adorno's concentric circles.

The Widening Spell of the Leaves - Larry Levis -- Last spring, I sat down with this book again and read it straight through. It's not often that I read Levis that way. Usually I'll read sections from a particular book, or read one longer piece, but reading this way this time was instrumental in helping me figure out how to organize the longer poems in my manuscript.

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned - Wells Tower -- The best collection of short stories I've read in a long time. My students can expect to see at least one of these stories next semester in fiction writing.

The Norton Book of Composition Studies -- This was basically my Bible from winter to spring last year while studying for my exam in rhet/comp. Many of the essential composition theory and pedagogy essays in one place.

Elephants Teach: Creative Writing Since 1880 - D.G. Myers -- Well-written exploration of creative writing in this country. Provocative discussion of creative writing pedagogies, their evolution in American universities, and an argument for the future.

Freedom - Jonathan Franzen -- Not as good as the popular reviewers say, but it was entertaining all the way through. It's somewhat more affable than his other novels, especially The Corrections (which I prefer), and the plot kept me turning the pages. It's rare I have the patience to read a novel of this length, but Freedom kept my attention throughout. Franzen's interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air also helped to keep me reading.

Gospels In Our Image: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Poetry Based on Biblical Texts - David Curzon, editor -- This is one I started during Advent. Although I didn't get to finish it before I had to return it to the library, but it's probably one I'm going to purchase. It's a very unique anthology, and unique in the genre of Christian poetry anthologies, because of the poets included: Milosz, Dickey, Gluck, Plath, Yeats, Celan, Rilke, and Akhmatova, among others. Here's a quote from the synopsis: "The poems, which range in tone from playful to confrontational and from ironic to sublime, are set alongside the biblical passages that inspired them. The Annunciation, the Nativity, the Temptations in the Wilderness, the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion and Resurrection, are just a few of the narratives that have captured these writers' imaginations." I really had no idea how deep the Gospels' run into Twentieth-Century poetry actually is. No religious faith required for reading.

Shout Outs: I also want to give an end-of-the-year nod to a few friends who had first books come out this year:

Nick Demske - Nick Demske -- I met Nick in Tusculoosa in the fall where we were both reading for a Slash Pine Press event. I blogged about our meeting here. I haven't yet purchased Nick's debut because I'm waiting to do so at AWP when I can have him sign it. His is one first book I'm really excited to get my mits on. Here's a link to Nick's blog where he is Poet Laureate of Your Face and where you can watch him read/perform work from the new book.

Invisible Mink - Jessie Janeshek -- I wrote a little ditty about Jessie's book a couple weeks ago. Here's a link to it.

Ghost Lights - Keith Montesano -- Keith's debut is also an impressive start. I'm not going to say much more than that because I plan on reviewing the book in the next few weeks. I'll just say that I've gotten to know Keith a good bit over the last year, and I can say he's a good guy, he's a good reader, and he's a generous poet. Here's a link to Keith's blog and one to First Book Interviews which Keith now runs.

After the Ark - Luke Johnson -- Luke's someone I've become acquainted with through the poetry blogosphere and Facebook circles, and from what I can tell, he's a really good guy and a fine poet. Here's a link to Luke's blog. I've seen a smattering of poems from his forthcoming book, and this promises to be a fantastic debut, one that I'm looking forward to reviewing once I get my copy at AWP. The book will be out and available from New York Quarterly Books in just a few days, so as an appetizer, here are three poems from the forthcoming collection. Congratulations, Luke.

_______

Pageant, Christmas Eve

Full pews lined with burning beeswax.I was a shepherd boy tending a toddler flock.My mother, vigilant in her pulpit, told the storyof angels. She opened her eyes widefor Hosanna the highest, shut themto smile out peace. She was the voiceof Gabriel, the same voice I overheardtelling my father she was going to leave.It sounded distant then, like the plunkand hiss of lit votives falling in a tub,like underwater smoke. After the last hymn,my father and I stayed up past midnightto light new candle ornaments on our tree.Houselights snuffed, the dark became an emptyribcage, the tree our flickering heart.

Hospice Tape #3

Miracles of technology throttle meless than they do my father, who weptto see my mother, two weeks dead,

on the camcorder flip-screen,the flickering stamp of her gaunt face.She spoke about God and absence,

looking for one in the other,learning to love my fatheronly after she had left.

Someone told me an adult lifedoes not begin until you see a parent dieand know it’s possible.

Needle-draws and hospital gowns,liquid pixels and high-definition,always light, this aperture for grief.

I rewound to where I was a child,paused. My father left for his study,those quiet offices fathers keep.

Retiring the Night, the Season

It’s not the light sparkingas the sun drips down, notleaves and needles spiraling

to red clay through late afternoona too-cold day in October;it’s not these things I’m guilty

of making more than they are.Extremes trick us into breathingmeaning into empty or at least

half-full gestures, into skinfeeling like skin feels, or treesbehaving how trees ought:

Outside rained over the tetherballs,but here I held the world. The joyof getting it down, down right,the sharp purple scent of pageunder pen—I scratched awayin love with the word.

Number six: squirrel.Squirrel. It rode the curves,rolled round the vowel. Again: squirrel.Twisted open in the repetition—past a small thing quivering. Whiskers,acorns in a picture book. Pulled intoa turning whorl of sound.

Squirrel. The heady scent of what we callwhat we call—by then no more wordthan sound, no more sound than itself.

Pure strangeness, and the sweepof the clock. I handed back my page,its blank blurred lines. Then the bell,the door. Tall grass at the edge of the blacktop.

It is the evening of the birth of god.Singing & with gold instruments the angels bear down upon the barn, their wings neither whitewax nor marble. So they have been recorded: burnished, literal in the composed air, they raise their harps above the beasts likewise gathering, the lambs & all the startled silken chickens.... And Joseph, off to one side, has touched his cheek, meaning he is weeping–

But how small he is, withdrawn from the hollow of his mother’s life, the raw flesh bound in linen as the stars yield light to delight his sense for whom there is no ornament.

Jan Vermeer. Woman with a Water Jug. c.1664-1665. Oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.

Vermeer

Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae. Luke 1:48

She stands by the table, poisedat the center of your vision,with her left handjust barely onthe pitcher's handle, and her rightlightly touching the windowframe.Serene as a clear sky, luminousin her blue dress and many-tonedwhite cotton wimple, she is lookingnowhere. Upon her lipsis the subtlest and most lovelyof smiles, caughtfor an instantlike a snowflake in a warm hand.How weightless her body feelsas she stands, absorbed, within thisfulfillment that has brought morethan any harbinger could.She looks down with an infinitetenderness in her eyes,as though the light at the windowwere a newborn childand her arms open enoughto hold it on her breast, forever.

Congratulations to Jessie Janeshek on the publication of her first book of poems, Invisible Mink. It's just been released in the last few weeks by Iris Press and is available now in stores and through Amazon.com.

I haven't gotten to know Jessie well personally over the years--she's a post-doc at University of Tennessee where she teaches poetry writing, and she was two or three years ahead of me when I entered the English PhD program--but I have had the privilege of reading with her a number of times. When listening to her read, I'm always struck by how quietly aggressive her poems are, and you can certainly find this quality in the book.

The cover image to the book is from a painting by Cynthia Markert, and it demonstrates the "quietly aggressive" perfectly in the muted colors of the figures, how their bodies are turned casually and seductively, their wry expressions, their faces askance or looking near, not at, the viewer. And then there's that one face bathed in light, looking straight at you, as if it knew your darkest secret and was ready to tell.

My experience of reading this book is very much like like my experience with the image on its cover: I could not look away. Its gaze pulls me back again and again. And this is somewhat fitting since the subject matter for a lot of these poems, and the speakers in the poems, too, come from Hollywood films of the 1930s and 40s, films like A Stolen Life and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and from actresses like Bette Davis.

In a blurb for the book, poet Marilyn Kallet describes Jessie's work and subject matter this way:

"It’s staying light later,” the narrator of the opening poem tells us, “I’m in the mood to meditate Bette Davis….” The poems deliver verses on seductive female stars from the films of the 1930s and beyond. Like the stars they’re watching, the poems become the empowered ones; language is theirs to play with, to betray (“How did the wedding ring slip off Pat’s finger?”)

Each poem is impeccably crafted, syllable by syllable. The line breaks are as crisp as a good Pinot Grigio. No, wait, for the Bette and Lucy poems, pour yourself a martini. The Perpignan poems might like a tumbler of rosé.

One of my problems with a lot of recent books, especially first books, is that the "project book" approach has a high likelihood of leaving its reader in the lurch if there's not enough context or information for the reader, or if there's not enough other stuff going on in the collection that the reader can track or hold on to. While I've never seen any of the films alluded to in Invisible Mink, and while I know my experience of reading the poems would likely be enhanced by having that background, I found that my entrance into the poems and my enjoyment of them wasn't troubled by my ignorance of film.

The poems in the book are enough to sustain several readings. And these are not just poems about Hollywood starlets. We've also got The Brontes, Villette, Bob Dylan, Villon, and even Brueghel. There's also a playfulness with the subject matter and language in, for example, this poem which gets it's title from a Bob Dylan song:

after to cups of coffeeI live off sweetness and blightrise every dayto skate on Veronica Lake.She's frankly lit

by a border of torchesshaped like a small constellation.Hotdogs roast on her rotating bladessmell astrological.You get used to her moods.

But to get back to the "quietly aggressive," the poems in this book also have something to say about artistic production beyond film. At their core, these are poems about the act of writing.

One of my favorite poems in the book is "Jezebel Keeps the Appointment." (This morning I found myself muttering the line "You're not the cute little ruin" to myself, and the book is filled with moments like it.) In some ways, the poem reminds me of Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art" in which the speaker articulates the tension between making and losing, and how the two are really one thing: "The art of losing's not too hard to master/ though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster."

Jezebel, who appears as the speaker in ten other poems, expresses a parallel sentiment to Bishop's. Even as we write, even as we destroy the thing we're writing about, we cannot stop, and we cannot stop because there's no guarantee we'll be able to start again. And so we keep on keeping on.

Jessie Janeshek's poems make me want to keep writing, and I encourage you to look for her work.

Jezebel Keeps the Appointment

Write it out hard, you scream.Watching Midnight Expresslet me dream I busted in a kid's skullleft enough blood for an oath.

The rest of the boys do light mathremind me you hav a bad heartsomeday you'll slip off, comatoseleave me to calculate grace and want.

Last night, the cat pissed the bed.I washed so many timescouldn't get cleandictated a letter to Lady Macbeth.

You're not the weak oneyour braids sopapillas.You're not the cute little ruin.

The train does not stop here.What's worse? It's packedwith people from high school.

I don't think they know mehepped up, not desperate.I won't earnestly prayor die for just anything.

You want to give, don't knowhow to give up. I want to keep writingThere's no guarantee. There'sno guarantee. This comforts me.

"Jessie Janeshek grew up in West Virginia and earned a B.A. from Bethany College, an M.F.A. from Emerson College, and a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee–Knoxville. Her first book is Outscape: Writings on Fences and Frontiers, a literary anthology she co-edited in 2008. She teaches writing at the University of Tennessee, works as a freelance editor, and promotes her belief in the power of creative writing as community outreach by co-directing a variety of volunteer poetry workshops. She lives in Knoxville with her man and three cats."

Thanks to “Anonymous” who suggested this poem by Nin Andrews as another example of an “AWP poem.” I'd previously posted another "AWP poem," "At the Convention" by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, here.

And speaking of AWP, what exactly are you already looking forward to? Any particular readings or panels? Off-sites?

I’ve got the Pedagogy Forum on one of the days, and I’ll be working the Grist table at the Bookfair. Otherwise, I’ve already got the Blackbird/Somebody (Diode? New South?) reading in my sights. There are a number of readers for this one, but two looking forward to T.R. Hummer and Rae Armantrout especially. I can’t remember where I heard about this reading (Twitter? Facebook? blog?), but I’ll post more info when I find it, unless anyone out there knows and can post in the comments.

Really I’m looking forward to catching up with good friends and new friends. Talking shop and arguing. Generally sharpening the iron. Some laughs.

Somebody recently described AWP as feeling more like a family reunion, and this year, yeah, feels like that. Thank god.

UPDATE: via Diode's Facebook page:

diode has its 7 readers for its joint AWP off-site reading with Blackbird:

Blackbird is working on their 7, and it promises to be a great line-up.

Thursday, Feb. 3, 8:00, The Avalon Theater.

_______

Poets on Poetry

—I'm pretending not to see him so I can eat my lunch.—But who reads that shit? About as true to life as a velvet grape.—I think he judges poetry with his dick. And poets, too.—What's the scoop on her? Is that her husband, or is he just hanging out in her hotel room for the duration?—Personally I prefer not to think about his dick.—His latest work, especially the poems about his dead father, begin to sound human.—Think of it as a conductor's baton.—Granted, she wins all the prizes, but talk about grandiose.—The latest inductee into the goddess cult. Like back in the sixties when sex and war were the metaphors for consciousness-raising.—I bet they're really confessional, and she's a total pervert too.—He knows how to network, who to climb, and when. Timing is everything.—Insomnia, maybe chronic fatigue syndrome. I think it's just frayed nerves.—I always admired your work but can't figure why it's been so marginalized.—You want my phone number?—The illusion of the narrative appears in your work, but there's really a thread of the unspoken narrative, right?—Are you married? Do you have children?—Never even answered my inquiries, the pompous bastard.—That's really sweet. Thank you.—I think I have a blindspot when it comes to his work.—Must be great to get away.—I don't know why they don't just fire the asshole.—Reminds me of a gilt frame with no picture inside.—She's eloquent enough, a nice cocktail poet.—Did you see what he was wearing?—She says it's none of my business what she writes.—Poetry is a private affair. A kind of masturbation. An endless self-portrait.—So what if he is another excellent specimen of the dead father poets.—Where are the dead mother poets?—I like the way you think.—Yet another vapid, beautiful wind-blown babe-poet for the cover of APR.—Let's go out for a beer somewhere.—I sure wouldn't want to live in his skin.—A local dive would be nice.—The way I see it, you're better off not getting famous too soon.—I never even send out my work.

If you are reading this, you are probably a friend of Dean Young and/or a friend of poetry. And you may have heard that our friend is in a precarious position. Dean needs a heart transplant now. He also needs your assistance now.

Over the past 10 or 15 years, Dean has lived with a degenerative heart condition--congestive heart failure due to idiopathic hypotropic cardiomyopathy. After periods of more-or-less remission, in which his heart was stabilized and improved with the help of medications, the function of his heart has worsened. Now, radically.

For the last two years he has had periods in which he cannot walk a block without resting. Medications which once worked have lost their efficacy. He is in and out of the hospital, unable to breathe without discomfort, etc. Currently, Dean's heart is pumping at an estimated 8% of normal volume.

In the past, doctors have been impressed with his ability to function in this condition. But now things are getting quickly worse. Dean has been placed on the transplant list at Seton Medical Center Austin, and has just been upgraded to a very critical category. He's got to get a heart soon, or go to intermediate drastic measures like a mechanical external pump.

Whatever the scenario, the financial expenses, both direct and collateral, will be massive. Yes, he has sound health insurance, but even so, he will have enormous bills not covered by insurance--which is where you can help, with your financial support.

If you know Dean, you know that his non-anatomical heart, though hardly normal, is not malfunctioning, but great in scope, affectionate and loyal. And you know that his poetry is what the Elizabethans would have called "one of the ornaments of our era"--hilarious, heartbreaking, courageous, brilliant and already a part of the American canon.

His 10-plus books, his long career of passionate and brilliant teaching, most recently as William Livingston Chair of Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin; his instruction and mentorship of hundreds of younger poets; his many friendships; his high, reckless and uncompromised vision of what art is: all these are reasons for us to gather together now in his defense and support.

Joe Di Prisco, one of Dean's oldest friends, is chairing a fundraising campaign conducted through the National Foundation for Transplants (NFT). NFT is a nonprofit organization that has been assisting transplant patients with advocacy and fundraising support since 1983.

If you have any questions about NFT, feel free to contact the staff at 800-489-3863. You may also contact Joe personally at jdiprisco@earthlink.net.

On behalf of Dean, myself, and the principle of all our friendships in art, I ask you to give all you can. Thanks, my friends.

Yours,

Tony Hoagland

You can help.

To make a donation to NFT in honor of Dean, click the link below his photo. If you'd prefer to send your gift by mail, please send it to the NFT Texas Heart Fund, 5350 Poplar Avenue, Suite 430, Memphis, TN 38119. Please be sure to write "in honor of Dean Young" on the memo line.

Thank you for your generosity!

I had no idea about Young's condition. He is adored by many and is, I hear, an excellent teacher. While I own only one of his books, and he's not a poet that I go to repeatedly, I do always read his work when I come across it in journals and magazines, and, over the years, I've posted a small handful of his poems on this blog. (See links below.) I have a great deal of admiration and respect for his work and for the tone he's brought to the poetics discourse. Never spiteful or angry or callous. Always humorous, selfless, and generous.

Fire is speaking again,Everything belongs to me.A bird flies over--not even a challenge.A handkerchief, a window, a war.A little girl helped up the steps into a train.Two crazy winos arguing about the formation of the universe,one says, Time folding, the other, You’re not listening.A valentine out of paper doilies with blunt scissors.It’s almost eighty years ago,the tree wants to tell how far it’s come,the mountain how fast it can run,the past in the form of a locomotiveknows it must switch from coal to electricityto ever catch up.A book of poems by Apollonaire left on a table.No, a man comes back to get itbefore the table is removed,the floor torn up,the whole building knocked down.Zephyrs over a doorway--you don't see work like that anymore,in a a different form they lived in Sophocles.And how to get at the fullness of life,its quivering and rushfirst with blunt scissorsthen symbolic notation?Sometimes fire seems to be elsewherebut it is only resting.I cannot live without yousays the soldier gripping the little girl's handonly she is no longer a little girl,it is 20 years later, could this be the onewho the valentine was for?May, the air full of pollen, kerchoo.A handkerchief changes hands.The argument about the universe heats up.They're not crazy winos,they're retired emeritus professors of theoretical physics.One was a soldier in another country long ago.Sheep are blocking the road.A train goes byand a little girl holds a cut-out heart to the windowand he holds the reins of his horse,happy he doesn't have to shoot anyone at the momentand no one is shooting backand to gallop over the hill to the sea.What would his life have beenif he hadn't gone back for the book?It is the scary face of chance looking at himbut when he sees the girl at the table,it's the other face.A cheek, a handkerchief, a wave.A baby, a conservatory, a garden.She sits at the piano with the lid closed.A sigh falls from the sheet of music.The train lets out a blast of steam.An old man walks in a gardenchecking his head for equationsuntil a girl runs towards him with a paper heart.A horse the color of smoke.Better why not yes now.Must you go so soon.She takes off his glove.Handprint on the window,handprint on the sky.

Here are two poems by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, a poet who is new to me.

The first poem was recently featured in American Life in Poetry, and emailed to me by a friend who dreads the English Department holiday party awkwardness as much as I do.

The second is another from her collection Everything is Everything, and it is the best AWP poem I've seen, though I think it's probably the only AWP poem I've seen. (Although, this wrap-up of the 2010 AWP in Denver is so good it may as well be a poem.) Anyway, I found the poem to be pretty funny and I think you will, too, especially if you've ever worked an AWP Bookfair table.

Both are worth reading and sharing.

At the Office Holiday Party

I can now confirm that I am not just fatterthan everyone I work with, but I’m also fatterthan all their spouses. Even the heavily beardedbear in accounting has a little otter-like boyfriend.

When my co-workers brightly introduce meas “the funny one in the office,” their spousesgive them a look which translates to, Well, duh,then they both wait for me to say something funny.

A gaggle of models comes shrieking into the barto further punctuate why I sometimes hate livingin this city. They glitter, a shiny gang of scissors.I don’t know how to look like I’m not struggling.

Sometimes on the subway back to Queens,I can tell who’s staying on past the Lexington stopbecause I have bought their shoes before at Payless.They are shoes that fool absolutely no one.

Everyone wore their special holiday party outfits.It wasn’t until I arrived at the bar that I realizedmy special holiday party outfit was exactly the sameas the outfits worn by the restaurant’s busboys.

While I’m standing in line for the bathroom,another patron asks if I’m there to clean it.

It was September, the beginning of the semester, when I started submitting Praise Nothing to contests and publishers' open-calls. And now that it's December, and I've finished grading final essays and poetry portfolios, and now that I've got some solid time to just concentrate on my poems, I'm starting to get antsy.

Like my peers/friends, I've learned from submitting poem batches to journals over the years how to wait, but this waiting game is different because there's so much riding on those three little emailed words, "We are delighted...," or on the "Unknown Caller" ID on the cellphone screen.

Or, at least, that's what I imagine and hope for.

Even still, I'm prepared for rejection, I think. Not that I expect rejection, just that rejection is a regular experience in this writing life, as you know.

I'm one of those people that never gets down at the sight of the thin envelope and paper slip in the mailbox. Maybe I'm a masochist, but when I send out batches of poems, I really do look forward to rejection. Part of this pleasure in what might seem to be a kind of psychological self-mutilation is that getting the mail is an everyday joy in my life, and, when there's something for me, my day is made! There's also a joy in being able to send out again the poems I believe in. Put 'em right back in the mail.

So, I'm anxious to find out how I'm going to react when I get my first manuscript rejection of this round. I'll keep you posted.

Speaking of rejection, Brian Simoneau tells a good story today on his blog about a recent day filled with rejection. Here's an excerpt, but be sure you click over because the ending of this entry is laugh-out-loud good.

One thing I will say: last week, in one twenty-four hour stretch, I received five rejections. Now, like most writers out there, I've grown used to the rejection that comes along with sending out manuscripts. I recognize that it's part of publishing, that the process is more-or-less subjective, that it doesn't and shouldn't reflect my relative worth as a human being. I even make my lame little jokes—mostly self-deprecating—as I (over)analyze the scribbled-in-ink message (or lack thereof) on each lame little slip of paper. But five rejections in one day? That's rough.

I said this to a friend the other night: "I love poetry, but I hate reading poems." He said he could relate. We discussed how so much poetry disappoints.

The rhetoric of the statement exaggerates its expressed sentiment, obviously, but as the year comes to a close, I'm struggling to make my list of Best of 2010. What were yours?

_______

Depressed by a Book of Bad Poetry, I Walk Toward an Unused Pasture and Invite the Insects to Join Me

Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone.I climb a slight rise of grass.I do not want to disturb the antsWho are walking single file up the fence post,Carrying small white petals,Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them.I close my eyes for a moment and listen.The old grasshoppersAre tired, they leap heavily now,Their thighs are burdened.I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make.Then lovely, far off, a dark cricket beginsIn the maple trees.

Wrigley — a University of Idaho poetry professor whose resume includes eight books, six Pushcarts, and Best American Poetry — writes from Moscow Mountain, where he lives with his wife, writer Kim Barnes. And if we did as the ancient Greeks did and gave power to the best orators, he would probably own that mountain, and many others, though he would probably never leave the West.

On Wednesday, December 7, Wrigley reads from his latest collection, Beautiful Country, at 7pm, at Auntie’s Bookstore.

The Inlander also has a brief interview with Wrigley. Here's a link and an excerpt:

Some Inlander readers may be new to poetry. Anything they should know before your reading?

I’ve always believed my poems were written to be read aloud. Poets maintain a kind of relationship to the rhythms and sounds of language that other writers do not usually want or need to. It’s part of the job description. A poet’s primary task is to keep language capable of truth in the midst of mendacity — these days, that seems particularly important.